It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. There is no particular reason for this, I just found lying on my couch after work to be much more agreeable than exerting the Olympian amount of effort it takes to write this thing. Exaggeration? Maybe. All I know is I like lying on my couch.
Anyway, the last 2 weeks have been ticked over nicely. It is such a relief to find yourself breezing through each day and the time not dragging at all. There was a nice moment not too long ago when I came home from work, kicked off my shoes, sat on the couch and thought "it's good to be home". Now that may not sound significant, but I had spent a good deal of time wondering if I would ever settle or whether everyday life would become a chore so to feel at home was something of an epiphany. This, of course, is not to say that I have forgotten where home, or the people in my life who matter most, really are.
I have also found that I am enjoying work. It must be said that sometimes it can drag but then that surely must apply to almost every job, except maybe being an astronaut...or a demolition expert (let's face it, getting paid to blow up big buildings must be awesome). My usual routine involves arriving at work at 9:00am, having a cup of coffee at 9:01am, reading and answering e-mails and then spending the rest of the day working on various project proposals or working out a budget (all interspersed with numerous cups of life-giving coffee). I have also discovered that proposal deadlines (in this case, our Edinburgh Global Partnership proposal was on Wednesday 23rd) can cause inordinate amounts of stress followed by a tsunami of relief rolling over you as it wings its way through cyberspace and (hopefully) gets accepted. So I think I will happy working at CYPPD for the next year, although I will be even happier if the projects I am planning don't crash and burn!
Having previously stated that I feel at home both in Ulaanbaatar, and in my apartment, settling in has not been without it's problems. There are the normal things that go hand-in-hand with moving to a city in a poor country, such as trying to avoid being mugged or pick-pocketed, dodging maniac drivers (who presumably count hitting a foreigner as a million points and see road safety as something to be pondered philosophically as they hurtle round a corner on the wrong side of the road). Then there are the less usual, person specific things. In my case, this means discovering (after having lived in my apartment for about a week: I only remembered to write about this yesterday) that you share your apartment not with a family of cheeky, yet friendly mice, nor a large cantankerous spider, oh no, that would be a luxury only to be dreamed of. Instead I discovered that, in fact, I share my apartment with the cremated remains of my landlady's mother-in-law. That's right, you read correctly; another persons dead relative. "Stop over-reacting Mike" you might say, "it's only ashes", and whilst that is true, it doesn't help to learnt that said dead mother-in-laws old clothes also occupy one of the compartments of your closet. For intents and purposes she still bloody lives here. Couple that with all of the strange noises the flat makes at night and the fact there have been a few times when I have woken up in the morning to discover a door open or light turned on that I could swear I closed or turned off the night before. Oh and then there were the words GET OUT scrawled in blood across my living room wall (just kidding...I think). Throw all of this into a metaphorical cauldren, stir it around a bit, and you are left with a concoction that has a 100% chance of freaking me out.
I seem to have grown used to my apartment's little indiosyncracies now and don't really associate it with a ghost any more, but there was a moment when I almost called Ray, Peter, Egon, and Winston to proton pack her dead ass.
The next little obstacle to settling in which my apartment threw at me (although admittedly, it's more a comic minor inconvenience than anything else) was quite literally shocking (please excuse the terrible pun). The first time occurred I didn't quite know what had happened. One mintute I was flicking through Mongolian channels on my TV, the next I had taken a big jump backwards and was waving my hand around in response to the sharp pain that had just shot through it. Okay, so the pain wasn't really bad, but allow me some dramatic license. Once I had gotten over my consternation and realised that it was just a static shock, I gazed around looking for the culprit. The TV was the most obvious suspect, sitting there looking old and angry with the world for inventing better TV's. But no! I had cautiously crept forward, reached out and touched it. Nothing. I scanned the floor looking for an exposed wire, anything upon which I could lay blame and exact revenge. Still nothing. Then, as I stood up I got shocked again. This time it was clear who was responsible. A most unlikely suspect if ever there was one. It sat there, green and seemingly harmless, but this potted plant was my attacker. I headed over to the fridge to get a beer and decide what this plants' fate would be. As I opened the fridge with my right hand, I put my left on the top and zap, I got shocked again. My immediate thought was that the plant on the TV had somehow hurled a bolt of lighting, Zeus-style, at me. However I quickly became aware that it was the other potted plant on top of the fridge that had assailed me. It was clearly a plant pincer movement, and a well executed one at that. The plants and I now live in a sort of North Korea - South Korea situation. I know not to invade their space and they know that if I do they will zap me again and that, unfortunately, would result in their quick exit from the building via the window.
The final thing I would like to talk briefly about is the sudden turn for the worse which the weather has taken recently. On the coldest day of this month (Saturday 19th) it snowed. It snowed a lot. I first became aware of this when I awoke that morning, had nice hot shower, threw on a t-shirt and trousers (the weather had been pretty good up to that point) and strolled outside. I doubt there has ever been a faster retreat (although the French or Italians may lay claim to that title). It was practically a blizzard. To say I was surprised would be a massive understatement. Before I had left my apartment I had been blissfully unaware of the Arctic conditions outside because I usually keep my curtains closed as I live on the ground floor and don't want curious Mongolians peering in. The snow in Mongolian is very strange. It doesn't feel wet to the touch and it is very powdery. Strangest (and worst) of all however, is the fact that try as you might, you cannot make a snow-ball out of it. I very nearly broke down in tears when I made this discovery. My dreams of stealthily landing a snow-ball on someone's head were dashed by the freakish snow of Mongolia.
That just about wraps it up for this post. I hope you have enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment